Reframing Liberal Concepts
Dave
Thomas
Many of us learned about
'Framing' by reading George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant. Framing is
essentially giving an old word or phrase a new meaning or substituting a word
or phrase for an old one to describe something with a new meaning. Framing
seeks to label something with words which have favorable or unfavorable
connotations. Thus a thing that is favorable becomes thought of as unfavorable
or the reverse.
George Lakoff's recently
published Whose Freedom? The
I find Geoffrey Nunberg's
Talking Right to be more readable than George Lakoff's books and more to the
point, in giving many examples of Conservatives' framing and the reframing that
liberals must do. The Earth Works Action book, 50 Simple Things You Can Do to
Fight the Right offers liberal tactics (compatible with the liberal strategies
presented in the books which were reviewed in the last 2 newsletters),
including more comments on reframing.
The following discussion of
Liberal Reframing of Conservatively framed concepts is stimulated by the above
books. I will focus upon reframing the word liberal, which both Geoffrey
Nunberg and I believe to be crucial, although many others have given up and
turned to the word 'progressive'. I will then suggest how we can reframe many
other misleading conservative phrases.
Misleading Conservative Phrases
We are all aware of many
misleading conservative phrases: Silent Majority, the L-word, Liberal Elite,
Class Warfare, Liberal Media Bias, Sound Science, Compassionate Conservatism,
Family Values, Culture of Life, Partial Birth Abortion, No Child Left Behind,
Marriage Penalty, Ownership Society, Personal (not Private) Accounts, Clear
Skies, Clean Water, Healthy Forests, It's Your Money, You can spend your money
better than the government can, Government, Death Tax, Department of Defense,
War on Terrorism, Patriotism, and others. In most cases, I find it easy to
refute the conservative framing.
First let's deal with major
words which label us: Liberal and Progressive. Liberals have largely failed to
challenge the conservative Demonizing of Our Liberal Name. Yet 'Liberal' has
a clear definition, a proud history and is essentially identical to the
traditional mainstream American Dream. No wonder the conservatives have
exerted themselves to distort its meaning. What is surprising our Liberals
failure to defend our term and attack its attackers, especially since it is so
easy to defend and easy to attack the conservatives' distorted reduction of and
attacks on our American Dream.
Our Liberal Values
We are very clear about the meaning of the word, 'Liberal'. People who believe
in the following values are Liberal.
·
All
members of our American community should have the same freedoms and
opportunities.
·
We each
have the responsibility to protect the freedoms and opportunities of all other
Americans.
·
We and
our government should be competent and compassionate,
Taking care of ourselves to the besto of our ability and
helping those who have fewer freedoms and opportunities.
·
Our
Our Liberal Struggles
These values can be traced back over three centuries, to
Opposition from
Conservatives
In all these struggles, we overcame opposition from conservatives, who always
believe that some group should have fewer freedoms and opportunities than the
rest of us. While we have worked to enhance freedoms and opportunities to all
of us, conservatives have primarily worked to protect and enhance the extra
freedoms and opportunities of the wealthiest and most powerful among us,
including corporations which they want to treat as people.
Using Social Darwinist
theory, conservatives argue that the wealthy and powerful have earned their
extra freedoms and opportunities. Using Trickle Down theory, they argue that
everyone will benefit most by leaving the wealthy their wealth which they will
then use to create jobs. Both theories are wrong, without supporting facts and
many contrary facts. Both argue for an inequality that goes against our
American Dream.
Our American Dream
Shared by virtually all Americans, our American Dream has two parts:
·
We
should work together to defend and enhance our freedoms and opportunities for
all of us.
·
We
should be competent in using our freedoms and opportunities.
We can see our American
Dream in a survey I once did of 3rd - 5th grade readers from the 1830's to the
1880's. The earlier readers particularly used selections which presented the
message that wealthier people should be more compassionate, while poorer people
should be more disciplined (competent).
Our Liberal Values and
American Dream are essentially identical. Conservatives also profess to believe in the American
Dream, but they less likely to emphasize collective effort to enhance our
freedoms and opportunities. They are more likely to emphasize individual effort
to utilize freedoms and opportunities, which of course works to the advantage
of those with the most wealth and power. Conservatives also believe that some
people don't deserve to have the same freedoms and opportunities as the rest of
us. In fact, their efforts are always oriented to increasing the differences
between haves and the have-nots.
Liberals Give Up on Offense
Liberal Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and
Conservatives could thus
give their full well-organized attention to maligning both liberals and
government. Liberals began losing elections. Conservatives gained power not
only by replacing Southern Democrats with Republicans, but also by replacing
moderate with extreme conservatives. They also rationalized their organization
of power.
Conservatives redefined both
freedom and government. Conservatives benefited from defining corporations as
people such that government regulations were seen to violate corporate freedoms
rather than to protect worker and consumer freedoms. Government became the
enemy of rather than the guarantor of freedom and opportunity. Liberals, who
championed government protections, were viewed as tyrannically violating
corporate freedoms rather than defending people's freedoms.
Liberals or Progressives?
Progressives Falsely Define
Conservatives
Instead of defending the long and successful record of the liberals' many
victorious struggles to enhance the American Dream, many liberals have
retreated to describing themselves as 'Progressives'. They define Conservatives
as seeking to conserve or go back to the past, while Progressive orient to
progress oriented to the future. But this is inaccurate. Conservatives have
never simply wanted to return to the past. Their primary goal has been to enhance
the freedoms and opportunities enjoyed by the wealthy and powerful. To do so,
they have been quite willing to make changes oriented to the future they
desire.
Present conservative
Republicans are now the party of big ideas, which include many major departures
from past practices, even ones that they formerly endorsed. Conservatives have
abandoned their former isolationism for an aggressive foreign policy and have
abandoned our many alliances for unilateral action. They are abandoning our
separation of church and state which goes back to our founding, to argue for
government support for their Conservative Christianity. They are not just
insisting that social services be cut to balance the budget; they are cutting
taxes to imbalance the budget and force social services cuts. They are trying
to privatize all government assistance and many other programs. Republicans
have changed so much that many traditional conservatives and libertarians are
now disgruntled.
Progressives Haven't Defined
Themselves
Progress, like Reform, doesn't mean anything without further definition.
Progress toward what? Toward meeting what challenge? One group (I don't
remember which) recently spoke of using focus groups to define Progressive.
This would ignore any historical element. Are we to give up our claims to have
led the many victorious struggles to enhance the American Dream?
Another group held a contest
to obtain answers to, 'What is a Progressive?' Some winning answers follow,
which don't express anything which doesn't apply to Liberals as defined above.
And they express much about compassion, but less about competence. If
progressives become a threat, our Conservatives will surely attack them as
bleeding-heart progressives.
Carol S.,
A progressive is someone who
understands that it is the people of our country who make it great, and unless
we take care of the people first, we'll never be successful in maintaining our
greatness. Taking care of the people means providing healthcare for everyone.
It means keeping the environment clean, safe and preserved. It means great
schools and great jobs. It means improving the lives of families, rather than
lining the pockets of big business, or big politicians. It means taking care of
each other here, and around the world. We're all in this together.
Louis L.,
A Progressive believes that
a better life is possible for everyone. They know that when we make room at the
table for everyone, we are all enriched. Progressives actively pursue new, more
effective solutions to the problems we face as a people. Status quo is not a
given; it is a challenge to do better.
Julie P.,
A progressive is someone who
believes in the common good-in a fair shake for every person - and is willing
to fight for it.
Cassandra B., Garden City,
MI:
A progressive is someone
who, instead of reaching backward for a nonexistent, idyllic past, works
tirelessly toward bettering the future. A progressive recognizes that we are a
product of our historical moment and that in order to escape the fate of
repeating the same mistakes of the past we must continually reach forward,
expand our ideas and break down the barriers that keep us apart.
A progressive is someone who
cares about the other guy. It's as simple as that!!
Robert G.,
A progressive identifies
with the underdog, fights for the disadvataged, speaks for those without a
voice and is on the side of working class and poor people in the struggle for
equality and opportunity for everyone.
Jean M.,
A progressive is someone who
cares about others as much as themselves. They are interested in making all of
society a better place. They are not afraid to do the right thing because it
benefits society as a whole, rather than doing something for selfish reasons.
They realize that we are indeed our brother's keeper.
Craig S.,
A progressive is a person
who thinks the best is yet to come. Rather than yearning for 'the good old
days' a progressive realizes that the best days are still ahead if we are
willing to give up old ways that lead to failure and to take up new ways that
lead to mutual success.
William W.,
A progressive is someone who
understands that personal wellbeing cannot be separated from the wellbeing of
society, and that we are all better and stronger when we work together for the
common good. From the air and water that we all depend on, to the education of
our neighbors' children, a progressive understands that none is immune from the
effects of community underachievement. Today's progressive understands that the
individual is most effective when all in society function highly.
Virginia W.,
When the water rises, the
storm is raging and the winds are howling, the conservatives say "Quick,
throw some people out of the boat or we will sink." A progressive says,
"Hold on... let's build a bigger boat!"
Reclaiming Our Liberal Name
Conservatives attack us with
such epitaphs as extremist, elitist, representing special interests,
socialistic, and weak in defending our nation from violence. We should not
respond defensively as whinny victims. We should respond aggressively as proud
mainstream liberals.
We liberals are mainstream. We represent the best of our American
traditions expressed by our declaration of independence; constitution; and
victorious struggles to abolish slavery, protect farmers and other workers from
railroad and other trusts, protect consumers from unsafe products, guarantee
the rights of women to vote and own property, provide safety nets to protect
people from economic cycles and other misfortunes, eliminate legal
discrimination against blacks and other minorities, provide opportunities for
our poor, provide equal freedoms and opportunities for all people of whatever
sexual orientation, and provide legal pathways for immigrants to obtain work in
our United States. We support our American Dream. Public opinion polls show
that a majority of Americans agree with our liberal values of freedom,
opportunity, equality, responsibility and community.
We are not elitist. Just
compare the composition of the delegates to the 2004 Democratic and Republican
Conventions. We are inclusive, including all of the various groups cited
above, whom the conservatives have attempted exclude from rights (freedoms and
opportunities) enjoyed by the rest of us.
As liberals, we support
the public interest (or common welfare) which consists in enhancing
freedoms and opportunities for all, and especially people who have fewer
freedoms and opportunities for the rest of us. The conservatives are the ones
who support special interests by corruptly granting huge benefits to the
powerful and wealthy. Unfortunately some liberal supporters do have special interests
which they demand our liberal politicians cater to in return for their support.
Some examples are : Labor
union protection of their health care benefits has been a major obstacle to
securing universal health coverage. Automobile workers have joined their
employers in resisting raising vehicle mileage standards. Teachers and other
public employees have sometimes placed a high priority on job security at the
expense of competence. Senior citizens have resisting taxation of social
security benefits even for wealthy seniors.
Elected Democratic officials
have participated with Republicans in voting themselves various privileges.
Party officials have cooperated with Republicans to keep third party candidates
from debates, from receiving funding and from obtaining places on the ballot.
Party officials have also unduly influenced who can run, how they are funded,
whom they hire as advisors and what their message should be.
Catering to these demands is
not liberal and should be strongly resisted. Loyalty to our friends and
supporters should not extend to allowing them to take advantage of others.
We support competence by
people and by government. We
believe that within their capabilities, people should be self-supporting and
supportive of others. We want to provide help to people who are attempting to
help themselves. We find it difficult to help people who irresponsibly refuse
to do their share. With limited resources, we want to help others where our
help will make a difference. In so far as our institutions reward those who
help themselves, we don't want to help others who don't need our help. Nor to
we want to waste our resources trying to help those who refuse to be helped. We
recognize that it is often difficult to distinguish who belongs in which triage
category.
We have always supported
free private and public enterprise, only resisting the capitalist premise that the only bottom line is that
top decisions should be made by and returns from production mostly accrue to
the providers of capital. We believe that where necessary to stop external
costs imposed by unfair, unsafe and polluting practices upon workers,
consumers, suppliers and others, effective regulations should be imposed. We
believe regulations are necessary to encourage unionization to level the
bargaining field between employees and employers. We believe regulations are
necessary to protect investors. We also believe that powerful businesses should
be stopped from corrupting legislators through lobbying and campaign donations
to obtain benefits at the expense of our public.
We believe that our present
Bush administration and Republican-controlled congress is deceptive,
incompetent and corrupt, beliefs now shared by 2/3rds of Americans. We
strongly favor open transparency in government, competence by both our people
and our government and honesty.
We believe in strongly
defending our country against violence, including finding cures for diseases, protection from
drunk drivers, reducing the availability of guns primarily used for crime,
effective responses to natural disasters, and attacks by domestic and foreign
terrorists. We believe that such treats should be countered legally through
research and police action, with military force only rarely necessary and then
conducted through international auspices. We believe that these threats should
not be used as an excuse for extra-legal or legal extreme government secrecy,
invasion of personal privacy, unnecessary military procurement of weapons
suited only to conducting wars against non-existing technologically advanced
militarily powerful enemies, or for partisan attacks on the loyalty of
opposition politicians. We strongly believe in strengthening our police and
other first responder resources.
Following George Lakoff's
suggestions, we should not accept conservative framing of discussions,
including their using such terms as moral majority (when conservatives
represent neither), liberal media bias (which is demonstratively not true),
socialized medicine, death tax (which is really a tax upon inherited unearned
large wealth, much of which escapes taxation anyway through using original
values without capital gains), reform (which often means lowering taxes and
increasing benefits for the powerful and wealthy), and numerous other terms.
Instead, we should
continually refer to our mainstream liberal values: inclusiveness, our general
welfare, competence and compassion, cost-controlled Medicare for all, birth tax
(which is the amount of per capita federal tax faced by every newborn) and
similar terms which accurately portray our values.
We should aggressively
promote our beliefs while disclosing the deceptive attacks and frequent
hypocrisy of our opponents. Let them be whinny losers.
Reclaiming Some Other Terms
Silent Majority
This term, has been with us for some time, suggesting that most Americans are
quiet conservatives. That was never true and is particularly untrue now. No one
is noisier than conservatives, with their radio and television talk shows and
other media outlets. Sometimes it seems that everywhere you look or listen,
Rush Limbaugh and his like are whining about how liberals are victimizing them
and expressing their hatred of these domineering liberal elites. The majority
of Americans are liberal and are less outspoken than conservatives and
certainly whine and hate less.
Liberal Elite
This term, suggest that liberals are a small bunch of people with foreign,
effeminate, flakey, artsy, dissolute, rich values and tastes alien to the broad
American middle class and that they look down on this middle class. There may
be a few liberals like this somewhere, but the great majority of liberals are
typically middle class. Many wealthy conservatives fit this definition as well
or more than liberals. Much more than Conservatives, Liberals are mainstream.
Class Warfare
Conservatives cry 'Class Warfare' whenever liberals seek progressive taxation
which requires the wealthy to pay their fare share. Americans don't believe
much in the existence of economic classes, with almost all insisting they are middle
class. Instead of arguing that it the conservatives who are conducting class
warfare when they lower the taxes of the wealthy, liberals should simply argue
for fair taxation.
We are not against earned
wealth. We should point out that many of the wealthiest people didn't earn
their wealth, they inherited it. Others such as high corporate officers appoint
the people who will decide their undeservedly high compensation. Still others
could not earn the money they do without the social institutions that previous
generations have provided us. Fair taxation requires taxing this unearned
wealth. Our wealthy shouldn't get a free lunch, frequently paying a lower rate
than our less wealthy.
Liberal Media Bias
There is no liberal bias.. If anything there is a conservative bias. Our media
is dominated by conservatives and media liberals have been frightened into
passivity. David Brock presents abundant evidence in The Republican Noise
Machine. Fortunately, the internet is providing a fairer distribution of news and
ideas.
Sound Science
Bush administration ideologues have repeatedly repressed and distorted
government reports written by scientists. They are the enemies of scientists,
especially biologists and environmental scientists. Scientists overwhelming
agree about most of their conclusions, such that there is little evidence of
unsound science. What unsound science does occur is usually supported by
polluting corporations.
Compassionate Conservativism
A total oxymoron. Conservatives have fought every movement to assist people who
have fewer freedoms and opportunities than the rest of us. They continually
attempt to assist people and businesses that have more freedoms and
opportunities than the rest of us. Never has this been more true that since
Bush became president with Republicans controlling both houses of congress.
Family Values
This term is regularly used by Religious Conservatives to refer to their
sexually repressive measures. Most Americans don't share their obsession, being
more concerned with obtaining more freedoms and opportunities to care for their
families, by having adequate resources, insurance, or time (due to adults
working long inflexible hours demanded by their employers)
Conservatives oppose
adequate minimum wages, allowing people to qualify for the earned income tax
credit, Medicare for all, bankruptcy legislation which allows people to escape
illness produced bankruptcy, flexible time off from work to attend to family
needs, and so much more.
Family values are part of
the American Dream. We want to enhance freedoms and opportunities for families
and assist families to competently use their freedoms and opportunities.
Culture of Life
Conservatives use this term to refer to their opposition to allowing stem cell
research which may save lives, and allowing people (no matter their situation)
to have abortions or end their life. Yet they support the death penalty, war,
and torture. They believe they can prevent premarital sex by making the
consequences as severe as possible; thus they oppose sexual education,
contraception, vaccinations to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and other
measures which may save lives. They also oppose Medicare for All, Head Start
and other pre-school care, and many other life assisting programs. Once again,
most Americans disagree with them.
No Child Left Behind
Bush used this term to refer to his educational bill which instead of giving
more resources to schools in poor neighborhoods, takes them away. Conservatives
support vouchers which enable some students to attend private schools, while
those attending public schools would have fewer resources than at present.
To ensure that no child is
left behind, we need federal funding for education that ensures that schools
with culturally deprived children will get extra funding to hire top quality
teachers with other necessary educational resources.
Marriage Penalty
Since our income tax laws allow married couples to file joint income tax
returns, a small proportion of couples pay a higher proportion of their income
in taxes than if they were filing separately. As with the estate tax,
conservatives argue for changes that lower taxes not just for these few
couples, but for many wealthy couples who suffer no marriage penalty.
Death Tax
Conservatives refer to our estate tax as the Death Tax. They argue the value of
the estate has already been taxed and shouldn't be taxed again. Much of the
value of estates large enough to be taxed, is in untaxed capital gains, so
without estate taxes, it wouldn't be taxed at all. Much of our income is taxed
multiple times by an income tax, a FICA (Jobs tax used to support social
security) tax, and sales taxes when we spend it.
Those fortunate to have
built large estates almost certainly received many benefits from living in our
It's Your Money. You can
spend it better than the government can.
This is often not true. When production occurs, money is paid to the providers
of capital and labor (often not in fair proportion), but not to the providers
of our institutional and capital heritage. Unless this is paid through a Value
Added Tax (VAT) or some other similar tax, the person has received money they
didn't earn. Even for that part of the money one receives which should be
theirs, they often can't spend it effectively by themselves.
For example, the residents
of
Ownership Society
President Bush speaks of an Ownership Society in which all retirement, health
care, and other public programs are privatized. He says, you can manage your
money better than the government can. Unfortunately very few people have enough
money to own very much or the skill to manage it. Private risk sharing entails
enormous costs, since private insurers spend much more of their revenue than
does the government for marketing, high officer salaries, and profits.
Personal (not Private)
Accounts
Wanting to disguise their attempt to privatize social security, conservatives
used personal instead of private accounts. Just the same thing under a
different name. Most people given private accounts would fare less well than
under the present system in which seniors are supported by the younger people
they formerly cared for. People with private accounts would face many more
risks and would pay much for management of their accounts.
Clear Skies, Clean Water,
These labels on legislation are terribly misleading, since the legislation
entails allowing more pollution and destruction of healthy forests than the
alternatives they replaced.
Government
Reagan said, 'Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.' From
the standpoint of those businesses which want to abuse their stockholders, workers,
consumers and others, the government which protects them is a problem. But for
the people who might otherwise be abused, government is the solution.
Also as noted above, many
activities requiring cooperation of many people can be better managed by government
than by private business. Often these activities are best performed by a
government setting the standard, managing and paying a private contractor to
actually perform the activity.
Government can become a
problem when it becomes incompetent. Liberals support competent government and
oppose incompetent government at least as much a conservatives, as shown by the
fact that liberal governments are almost always managed more competently and
with less corruption than conservative governments.
However, inefficiency in
government does result from empire building by elected officials, something it
is difficult for voters to track and vote against.
Department of Defense
Very few of our wars have been in defense of our country's territory and many
not even in defense of our long-range interest. Truth in labeling would term it
our Department of War.
War on Terrorism
We are fond of using a war analogy. Politicians have referred to the War on
Poverty, on Crime, on Drugs, on Terrorism, and others. But these are not wars
in the traditional sense of two armed forces confronting each other. The Iraq
War is an appropriate label, but not the War on Terrorism.
Stopping terrorism is
similar to stopping crime or trade illegal drug trade. It requires police
activity to identify, find, apprehend, try, and incarcerate would-be and actual
terrorists, often with much cooperation among different agencies, both domestic
and foreign. Where terrorists are protected by governments, diplomacy and perhaps
military force are needed.
Our Iraq War has harmed our
struggle to stop terrorism. Like our support for the Israeli occupation of
Patriotism
We should never let conservatives suggest that they are more patriotic than
liberals. It is liberals that have forever supported our American Dream and
struggled to realize it for all of us, often against the opposition of the
conservatives. This is most obvious now.
Most contemporary
conservative leaders and pundits have not served in our military. They seek to
exclude people from being able to achieve our American Dream. They are using
exaggerated threats to reduce our freedoms and opportunities. We can all be
amazed at how many measures of our present conservative administration mirror
those used by the
In Summary
We must aggressively fight
to substitute our framing based upon honest representation of reality and our
American Dream interest for the dishonest conservative representation of
reality oriented to destroying our American Dream. We must never let their
misrepresentations stand without strong argument. We must begin by reclaiming
the label we have applied to ourselves for centuries.
Imagine how quickly this
would happen if yard signs and bumper stickers proclaiming, 'Proud Liberal'
appeared all over this land. It could happen faster than expected. The first
job is to form liberal groups in every neighborhood, so liberals need not feel
lonely, so the many aroused by our internet can be organized, so we can
maximize our liberal vote to put liberals back in control of our government. We
must also use every opportunity to counter conservative misrepresentation with
honest truth.